"Throw Out the Lifeline"
www.BibleStudyLessons.net
Appreciation to
www.glorystory.com
for use of pictures
and chronology.
BACKGROUND
* narration here * silent click on "AUTO" FOR AUTOMATIC. click on "NEXT" FOR MANUAL.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
And then God created a man in His own image.
The story of Adam & Eve and Adams rebellion against God
which is theologically known as “the fall”
can be found in the first few pages of the Bible.
Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters;
one of their descendants was a man called Noah. During Noah’s life
men were continually evil all day,
so God asked Noah to build an ark, as He had decided to send a flood
to cleanse the earth of all unrighteousness. After Noah’s flood
we are given the account of the tower at Babel
and then the life story of a man called Abram, around 1,900 years B.C.
Abram’s name was changed to Abraham,
God promised Abraham some land called Canaan.
Abraham had two sons Ishmael
and then Isaac.
Ishmael is believed to be the father of the Arab nations.
Isaac married Rebbekah and around 1,820 B.C.
they had twins called Jacob & Esau.
Jacob's name was changed to Israel,
and Israel had four wives and 12 sons. These 12 sons would become known as
the children of Israel or the 12 tribes of Israel.
Joseph (famous for his coat of many colours) was one of those 12 sons
and he was put down a well
and then sold as a slave into Egypt by his brothers.
Eventually due to a famine about 1,750 B.C.
his father Israel, his 11 brothers
and all of their wives & children travelled to Egypt,
where Joseph had risen to be the prime minister.
After Joseph’s death
the children of Israel became slaves in Egypt for over 400 years,
until God called a deliverer named Moses.
Around 1,250 B.C. when Moses was 80 years of age,
he challenged the Pharaoh; let the children of Israel go!
When the Pharaoh declined,
Moses pronounced a judgement of 10 plagues on Egypt,
and then led over 2,000,000 Israelites out of Egypt,
through the Red Sea
into the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years.
During this time,
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. When Moses died,
Joshua led the 12 tribes of Israel into Canaan,
the land that God had promised to Abraham.
This land is today known as Israel.
After Joshua died
God appointed Judges, to judge the 12 families of Israel.
The Judges judged Israel for about 250 years,
Gideon and Samson were both judges
and Ruth lived during the time of the Judges.
Samuel was the last judge and a prophet of Israel.
During the time of Samuel around 1,020 years before Christ, we enter the time of the Kings.
Samuel the prophet anointed Saul as the first king of Israel.
After Saul, David became King.
King David wrote a lot of the Psalms and was succeeded by his son Solomon,
who built the Temple for the Lord.
King Solomon also wrote 3000 proverbs and 1005 songs. Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.
But because of his sinful behaviour, the Lord took ten tribes from Solomon’s kingdom
and left him with just one tribe Judah, for the sake of David his father.
The tribe of Judah lived in southern Israel in Jerusalem.
Solomon died about 930 years B.C.
and then there were many other kings,
but ever since the Lord took the kingdom from Solomon,
there was the kingdom of Judah in the south, and the kingdom of Israel in the north.
790 years before Christ, war broke out between Judah and Israel.
It was around this time that God called Jonah to prophesy against Nineveh, you may recall the event:
when Jonah ran away, he was swallowed by a large fish. This was during the period 750 to 700 B.C.
Amos,
Hosea,
Isaiah
and Micah began to prophecy, against Israel’s disobedience;
the coming destruction of Jerusalem
and the coming of the Messiah.
In the year 640 BC the people made eight year old Josiah their king.
Josiah got rid of all of the idols,
refurbished Solomon’s temple,
reintroduced the law and turned the hearts of the people back to the Lord,
Josiah reigned until 609 B.C.
During Josiah’s reign, Zephaniah prophesied the total destruction of Jerusalem
and the dispersion of its inhabitants.
Joel’s prophecy also fits into the history here,
prior to the 70 year Babylonian captivity.
In 628 B.C. Jeremiah began to prophecy.
In chapter 25 of his book he prophesied very clearly, there is a 70 year captivity just about to take place.
In chapter 31 he said the LORD was going to make a new covenant that would be different from the Mosaic covenant.
Also Nahum in 612 prophesied the destruction of Nineveh.
Two years after Josiah’s reign as king,
in 607 Habakkuk began to prophecy,
concerning the destruction of Jerusalem…….
Twenty three years after Josiah’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem.
On August the 14th 586 years before Christ, the total destruction of Jerusalem and the temple began, as prophesied by the prophets.
The children of Israel, either escaped. were murdered or were taken to Babylon to be slaves.
Jeremiah wrote Lamentations which is 5 poems about Jerusalem’s destruction.
Ezekiel was taken to Babylon as a slave where he wrote his book.
The main message of Ezekiel’s book was that dispersed Israel,
a valley of dry bones,
would one day again be restored as a nation.
Daniel was also taken as a slave and the book we know as Daniel, was actually Daniels journal.
Scholars also believe that Obadiah’s prophecy was written about this time.
Eventually, Nebuchadnezzar died and his son Belshazzar was appointed king.
You may recall the incident in Daniel, when the hand wrote on the wall
MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN. That was in 539 B.C.
and Belshazzar was killed that same night, when Babylon was captured by the Persians
and Darius was made king.
This is when Daniel was made president.
At the end of the 70 year captivity, Cyrus the then king of Persia, according to prophecy, set the children of Israel free.
The historical records show that a remnant of 43,360 Jews left the captivity,
plus a further 7,337 servants but many Israelites remained, unwilling to leave their property.
Nehemiah the kings head waiter left Babylon, and started to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem.
520 years before Christ, at the urging of the prophets Haggi and Zechariah,
Zerrubabel started to rebuild the temple. Which was completed five years later, on March 12th 515 B.C.
and Ezra became the priest.
36 years later in the year 479 B.C. the Jewess Esther, became Queen of Persia.
It was around this time that Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament was written.
The four hundred year period from Malachi to John the Baptist is known as the silent years.
The Temple was in a continual state of dis-repair
and the Persian Empire was eventually conquered by the Greeks,
led by Alexander the Great 334 years before Christ.
Eventually the Romans conquered the Greeks and 63 years before the Messiah,
the Roman general Pompey the Great, took control of Jerusalem
and so it was that the whole land of Israel, became part of the Roman Empire, just as Daniel had prophesied.
Under Herod 19 years before Christ, the rebuilding of the third temple began.
The next prophet of Israel was John the Baptizer, his message was: "Prepare the way for the Lord."
The New Covenant will come with the Lord.
